Debating Creationists - Noah's Ark

[Kitsune]

Listening to a YouTube Video and there is the suggestion that stating that you should not state that the Great Flood never happened.

Do people here agree with this statement?

[Covenant]

No, the idea of a worldwide flood is absolutely insane, and it will get them to come out of their fringe-looney hole and scare the fence-sitters your way. You can start with saying that there's no damn Great Flood, and then get more specific and mention all the various flood myths that predate the old testament, the scientific evidence for other large floods that may have inspired such events, the amount of water it would have taken or the physics of what such a flood would mean, and so forth... but there's no reason to ever skip the "No Great Flood" stuff.

If you give them the benefit of that then they can argue that the evidence you just presented is evidence for a great flood, rather than evidence that it was a myth and inspired by those events. If you say it may or may not have happened, they can point to that as evidence, and feel vindicated. If you find every scrap of evidence they have and ruthlessly fit it into a rationalistic view of the world, you reduce their ammunition supply. They'll be stuck arguing that a large inland sea flooding a region of the middle east may jive with some idea of the firmament or something, which is a tenuous and silly arguement, and you can simply state the obvious and say "Or it was just a real flood, no less mundane than the ones we see today, like New Orleans, which could have inspired some primitive person to write about the waters that came up and swallowed the Earth and didn't recede for days and days."

You want to avail yourself of every useful tactic, even the dirtier ones, like keeping your opponent explaining themselves. Generally, the more they're trying to rationalize things, the weaker they're looking to a bystander--especially when you're letting the bystander fall back on a more common sense position. There have been big floods, but those are known to science. Never let someone get away with something, unless it's merely for the sake of arguement.

[DPDarkPrimus]

There have been floods world wide.

But there have not been any worldwide floods.

[Kitsune]

What types of attacks against creationism do you see as potentially turning off the fence sitters?

[DPDarkPrimus]

Creationism or the Great Flood?

[Kitsune]

Creationism in general?

For example, when talking to a Christian Fence sitter, you do not attack the basic moral backing of Christianity. You also don't attack whether or not god exists or does not exist in the first place.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I suppose it would depend on what was being discussed the most. Unfortunately, many people might interpret perfectly reasonable arguments against creationism to be attacks against their religion (ie, The Bible is not scientifically accurate).

[Patrick Degan]

Creationism in general?

For example, when talking to a Christian Fence sitter, you do not attack the basic moral backing of Christianity. You also don't attack whether or not god exists or does not exist in the first place.

Face it —take away a Divine Creation, you take away the Fall, which means you take away the entire reason why the Invisible Cloud-Being would set down laws for humans and later why he'd send down his split-personality to get himself offed as sacrifice for a curse he laid down on man in the first place, and you call into question his very existence in the bargain.

[Kitsune]

Are you also suggesting that one should not use as an argument that many Christians don't see a problem between evolution and their religious views?

[Patrick Degan]

Are you also suggesting that one should not use as an argument that many Christians don't see a problem between evolution and their religious views?

You mean, justify doublethink?